In the accompanying drawing, you have a plan for preserving that indispensable requisite in a boat, the towels, or rowing pins; the loss of which is not only very teasing, but often productive of serious inconveniences; while the practice of stealing them from each other forms a constant source of petty depredations, leading to perpetual quarrels among seamen in harbours. He who has been detained the better part of a day in the island of Sky, till half [p461] a dozen of these pins could be procured, well knows how to value that trifle, the neglect of which has caused the loss of his voyage, and might have led to that of his boat and his life also.
Fixed towels cannot well be used when boats are to be hoisted in alongside, as they are subject to be broken; and they are often inconvenient in getting in water casks, as well as in many other cases. Hence, pins capable of being unshipped are preferable. These are frequently lost, and the want is not always discovered till it cannot be replaced; or else it is not replaced without loss of that time which is often so valuable at sea. Very often, also, the delay of even a minute is rendered inconvenient or even dangerous; when the boat is dragging alongside by the painter in a heavy sea, and the vessel is either drifting or standing on.
The drawing requires little explanation. By pulling at the lower pin, the two upper are fixed at once, and on being unshipped they hang secure from loss; while the lower one serves us a spare towel, should any be broken. As not one boat in twenty thousand is provided with this invention, which is indeed scarcely known, it will not perhaps be found undeserving a place in your Journal.—
I am, &c.
J. M.
16. Cold Injection for Anatomical Preparation.
II. CHEMICAL SCIENCE. [◊]
1. Extraordinary Experiments on Heat and Steam by Mr. Perkins.
“The experiment affords some data towards answering the question, at what distance from the heated metal the water remained, when under the pressure of thirty atmospheres; we may safely aver that it exceeded one-eighth of an inch.”—Silliman’s Journal, xiii. 46.